Publications

This note outlines the World Bank’s Read@Home initiative’s recommendations for a “first collection” of children’s
literature. It is intended for Read@Home and other early reading programs involved in the development and/or
selection of books to support children’s pre-reading and early reading skills.

Providing children with a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts–with nonfiction making up as much as 50% of a book collection is critical in order to engage all kinds of readers and help children gain the background knowledge they need to succeed in their educational and life pursuits. Gender, diversity, and inclusion should be considered within all of the categories. In addition, accessible digital, Braille, audio, sign language, and other types and versions of books should be considered for as many titles as possible.

This document provides overall recommendations and general selection principles, further explanations of the types of book included in each category, and their importance for children’s language and literacy development.

La plupart des salles de classe des pays à faible revenu manquent de ressources pédagogiques, malgré les investissements substantiels dans les manuels scolaires et autres matériels d'enseignement et d'apprentissage sur plusieurs décennies. Une des principales causes de cette pénurie persistante est que les chaînes d'approvisionnement complexes, coûteuses et opaques entraînent la perte ou un retard de livraison des livres. Les tentatives précédentes de développer des solutions de gestion de la distribution étaient excessivement complexes, trop spécifiques à un projet et/ou trop coûteuses, ce qui rendait impossible leur adoption à grande échelle.

Most classrooms in low-income countries lack sufficient instructional resources, despite substantial investment in textbooks and other teaching and learning materials (TLM) over decades. One major cause of this continuing scarcity is that complex, costly, and opaque supply chains cause books to go missing or be delayed. Past attempts at developing distribution management solutions have been overly complex, too project-specific, and/or too expensive, making broad-scale adoption impossible.

Read@Home’s Track and Trace (R@HTnT) app is a revolutionary low-cost platform designed to bring transparency and efficiency to the TLM supply chain. Whether it’s a school textbook, teacher guide, book for reading practice, or tablet, ensuring TLMs get from the production point and into students’ hands is crucial. The open-source app, funded by the World Bank’s Read@Home initiative, can ensure that every stakeholder has real-time visibility into the journey of their TLMs and allow them to solve problems and correct issues that arise along the way. 

In 2018 NBA published an open licensing primer for early literacy publishers on open licensing, with a brief section for authors and illustrators. This edition looks at challenges and issues faced by content creators, such as publishers, authors, illustrators, and teachers, all of whom have a stake in producing high-quality and cost-effective materials for education. This primer includes lessons learned from the COVID-19 lockdowns, technology challenges that still impede access to digital content, and the tradeoffs between digital access and print.
In addition, this expanded edition is intended for use by governments, funders, NGOs, and others that commission children’s content and plan to use open licensing to do so. These organizations are as important as the content creators, who were the target audience of the first edition of this primer. Both they and the content creation sector should understand the licensing and economic issues involved so that budgeting and funding align with a system of fair compensation for content creators and producers. 

To teach young children to read, teachers and students need textbooks, lesson plans, and reading materials that are aligned with each other and with the science of reading. Books should also be procured at reasonable costs, and delivered to every classroom before the start of the school year.

Meeting these requirements can prove challenging not only in terms of ensuring that the materials contain effective, evidence-based content but also in terms of coordinating the logistics. In lower-resource settings, it can be surprisingly difficult to get the technical details right, from copyright terms, to procurement guidelines, to book production specifications, to transport and delivery.

This second Foundational Learning Knowledge Café shared practical solutions developed by World Bank experts and partners, including the Global Book Alliance, to overcome these common obstacles. Lead Literacy Specialist Penelope Bender and World Bank teams from Mozambique, Niger, and Rwanda discussed how they have successfully tackled challenges at each stage of the book chain to generate thousands of new titles in hundreds of languages, at dramatically lower prices, and many more books in the hands of children and teachers.

This Guide to Open Licensing in World Bank Projects provides an explanation of open licensing and how to use it in World Bank and other development projects to increase access to high-quality teaching and learning materials, including textbooks and storybooks.

This report is a brief introduction to the Republic of the Marshall Islands Book Supply Chain, focusing for practical reasons on the National capital, Majuro. The initiative began through the lens of human rights and particularly a child’s right to literacy in a language they understand. It was sparked by the lack of children’s books in the Marshall Islands. In fact, more than 90 percent of children in the RMI age 0 to 59 months live in a household with less than 3 children’s books (UNICEF, 2017). The very first Marshallese orthography was developed in tandem with the first Marshallese version of the bible in the late 1800s by missionaries. In 2021, the most accessible Marshallese reading materials is still the Marshallese version of the bible. Let us give thanks to God and Iroj for this time together. 

This Supply Chain Analysis (SCA) was carried out on behalf of The World Bank’s Read at the rate home initiative by the Blue Tree Group. Read at the Home supports the delivery of quality reading books to hard-to-reach homes, as quickly and efficiently as possible, and encourages parents and others to support children’s learning at home. Poor access to teaching and learning materials (TLM; including textbooks, teacher’s guides, and reading books) across the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) makes it difficult for children to learn. This study was commissioned to identify the main bottlenecks in the RMI book supply chain (BSC) and recommend strategies to ensure timely access to quality and affordable materials.

Low-cost, high-quality printing of teaching and learning materials (TLM) requires well-designed and highly competitive procurement. Since 2010, Mozambique has implemented a range of measures to reduce costs over time, making its printing procurement possibly the most competitive in Africa. As a result, printed pages purchased by Mozambique cost less than half of those purchased across the channel in Madagascar. Many other countries are also paying overly high unit costs for TLM. Mozambique’s success story can be replicated elsewhere by introducing the 10 success factors presented in the report.

The Incoterms rules have become an essential part of the daily language of trade. The objective of this guide on Incoterms and Insurance is to support Bank staff, country counterparts, procurement teams, and evaluation committees in the choice of the Incoterm for procurement and their evaluation of bidders' compliance, when procuring textbooks, teacher's guides, reading books, and other types of educational materials. Incoterms is an abbreviation of International Commercial Terms, a trademark of the International Chamber of Commerce. Unlike national trade policies, Incoterms rules are global, providing clarity and predictability to businesses around the world. The Incoterms rules are incorporated in contracts for the delivery of goods worldwide and provide guidance to importers, exporters, attorneys, transporters, and insurers of international trade. When choosing the Incoterm for a contract, the Buyer needs to understand what insurance coverage is needed during shipment and throughout the entire process of contract execution. This guide will explain how to select Incoterms that appropriately assign responsibilities for Sellers and Buyers throughout the delivery process, and also look at how insurance coverage is affected by each of these Incoterms.